


Royal Wolves

by oonaseckar



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mates, Pair Bond, True Mates, Werewolf Allison Argent, Werewolf Mates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:29:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 9,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24243580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Derek and Allison: both wolves, both royal.  Apparently trapped in an arranged marriage: except that they met long before, are true mates, consummated their bond long since.It would be a scandal if the populace knew: but there are those who seek the destruction of the wolf kingdom, and the two wolf royal houses, Hale and Argent.  And they'll stop at nothing...
Relationships: Allison Argent/Derek Hale, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. home from the (royal) honeymoon

Under a big honey-yellow wolf moon, the young royal mates run for the last run of their honeymoon, and their howls are delirious with joy, and with loss at the ending of this hectic, hyper first madness of love and marriage. Their attendants have been sent off, in this remote and obscure little interim land between two kingdoms, and it's just the two of them under the moon, pelted, fanged, wet-nosed and running on eight legs together. Soon this freedom will be over, and the drudgery of royal duty will set its iron chains upon their lithe young selves again. It'll be a harder road than ever before.

But for now, they're free, and they roll and play-fight and nip at each other, caught up in the wonder of a new mating, until the morning comes.

***

Derek and Allison are coming home, to the Hills Nation.

A royal honeymoon, it's all very well, a romantic dream salivated over by the general populace, obsessed over by every village gossip and inky news-sheet in the land. But it's nothing compared to the pomp and drama and pageantry of a royal homecoming. _After_ the honeymoon.

They could easily slip back into the kingdom, from their hinterland break away, via back roads and secret gates, to no fanfare, no official reception. But that wouldn't be playing the game. It would cheat the populace of their eagerly awaited arrival. It seems like hard cheese, a little mean-spirited, perhaps. Especially considering the honeymoon they've had. Why should they grudge anyone anything? They've had bliss, nirvana – occasional bottle-throwing fury and intoxicated recriminations over pre-existing miscreancies – but also joy and warmth and comfort. Security, _matedness_. A bond that's a gift, that will never break.

So they do it the right way, Allison and Derek – Crown Princess Allison, Crown Prince Derek, the barely-married idols of the common folk – and go in the front door, by the royal road into the capital city. It is what is owed, to the populace, to their royal parents who made a sacrifice of love that has not been required of them. To all those who are taxed and indentured and suffer too little game on too little land, an unnaturally human-style life of farming and business, to enable Allison and Derek to live a life of careful royal duty, that is also plush and comfortable and privileged beyond all the dreams of the proletariat. (That also, by pure chance, happenstance, has all the joys of regular wolf-kin who are granted none of the expensive toys and easy lives of royal folk. That only means they owe their subjects twice over, having not had the price to pay for their lifestyle that is normally exacted. Allison knows it perfectly well. Derek, having behaved rather worse than she in their unconventional 'courtship', knows it still better. They are resolved to be the best newlywed royal couple – the best royal couple – the best lifelong, mated, _utterly devoted_ royal couple – that has ever been, has ever ruled with a passionate gratitude and a careful presentation of formal, stilted devotion, before others.

But it doesn't make the actual processional entrance to the capital city of the Hills Kingdom, Beacon, any less of an ordeal. Oh, hell. In the carriage, during the approach to the city gates, they cling to each other. The city populace roar and howl within, where they have been confined, forbidden to gather outside. The euphoria of the wedding trip still clings: Allison rubs her face into Derek's shoulder, halfway into his armpit, and he laughs and presses his cheek down against the night-dark waves of her hair.


	2. A Royal Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new young royal couple, home to a right royal welcome.

“My love. My love. My _love_ ,” he breathes. “I'm pretty damn sure we'll survive. They're not about to eat us whole, I'm sure of it.”

“Oh, you say that,” she replies, pettish. “But is _that_ any kind of guarantee? Do you hear them? Perhaps they're baying for our blood.”

His hand over her hair, it is so gentle. So gentle as to soothe, so fierce and fervent as to burn. “Allison. _Alli_. My darling. If anyone were to seek your hide, then... _darling_. They would have to come _through_ me. And the resolution would be swift and bloody.”

“Oh, very manly,” Alli answers, still pettish. But she pushes her hands up underneath his tight silver-figured tunic, feeling the flex of muscle and flesh, sweet tanned skin and human fuzz and responsive nipples. And the hitch of his breath, the shiver and the shudder of his entire body, answers her petting, and satisfies something deep in her soul. “Do you think your spirited defence of my person, will gain you enough favour to excuse you your misdemeanours and crimes? Because you're so very wrong. My love, _so_ wrong. You will be paying for _years_ , fear not, years, Derek.”

It is the truth, both of them know it quite well. Neither of them have been saints in their royal courtship and union. But his sins and transgressions are so much more grievous than hers that – given her essential nature – there is no possibility that she will be held the more to blame, or paying for her infringements for longer. Or even as long. On the other hand, the question may well be whether she has the resolve and harshness necessary to enforce and exact that sentence. Especially as she nuzzles her head further into his chest, and he breathes out a sigh of satisfaction as they hove into view of the city walls. The roar of _hoi polloi_ deafens.

“Do you regret me, my love? Milady, Princess Allison of the City Kingdom, the Hills Nation too now – the Kingdom of my _heart_ – would you change a thing about our meeting, our mating, our marriage?” His voice is softer than any manly dominant wolf, of wolf-kin royalty, of the Hills Kingdom, has right to be. His hands over her lace-clad back, trailing nails that bleed, briefly, into claws, are possessive. But hesitantly so. He's staked his claim again and again, this past wedding-trip month. But always with the consciousness that her temper might snap at any moment, and the misdeeds of the past be thrown back in his face.

Her hand arrests his hand, where it strays upon her thigh, over transparent silk and lace garter. “A thousand thousand things,” she responds tartly. But when his mouth strays over her jawline, down to the curve of her neck, and suckles it wetly, she gasps and softens against him. “But I forget all of them, when you are with me,” she whispers. Then she smacks him, sudden and harsh. “ _Off_ me, my love. Here we are, at the gates of the city, and we must make a show that is royal and dignified. And does not have you attached to me by mouth, nor me looking like bruised fruit, in an undelicate and unladylike way.”

It still takes a vigorous shove, for her to make sure he knows she means business. And there's a whine, deep in his throat, as he straightens up obediently, sighs and orders his dress, smooths his face into dignified greeting for their loyal subjects. But as the great iron gates, of the great Beacon city of the Hills Nation, open up before them, they are both upright and seated a little apart, smiling graciously out a carriage window each side of the carriage, waving a little at the cheering crowds that line the way.


	3. pair bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Royal wolves, mated for life, for benefit of the paps and the vloggers. It isn't supposed to be _real._

The crowd are ecstatic at the blissful new royal couple's return, their _happy union_. If they only knew the half of it. It's _supposed_ to be a polite fiction, and even the populace knows that, really. It's proper, and orderly, and the accepted way of doing things. Ordinary, regular wolf-kin get to truly bond, truly mate, to cleave unto their true mate their whole lives long -- depending on how long they live, and how lucky they are. For most of them, that's the way it goes, unless a match is truly unsuitable, or a mate dies before meeting, or some such.

 _Royalty_ are kept strictly out of the path of any possibility of forming their true bond, finding their true mate. They are married, or sold off, for political advantage. And this sacrifice is deemed good by the populace, and excuses their luxurious lives, the heavy taxes and tributes extracted from their subjects, to create a feather-bedded existence that goes on to make the loveless royal life tolerable, with comfort and distraction.

But still, they're expected to make the pretence. It would be unseemly, ungrateful, to make their sacrifice obvious. It would be _ungracious_. Hence the whole fairytale, scented, ridiculous charade of a wedding parade that a royal couple must undergo, endure.

It's just supposed to be _fake_ , that's all. That's the secret comfort, the smug assurance that regular wolf-kin folk remember, when it occurs to them to envy and to resent, to foment rebellion in their hearts. Then they curl up to their one true mate in their marriage bed, they run with her howling wildly at the full of the moon and roll her over, down hills, running through the shallows of lakes together, falling and rolling and drying out, muzzle to tail, nipping and loving. And they can love and admire and gossip about their royals, and pity them too, and everything runs beautifully smoothly that way.

So perhaps they'd best not put on too much of a show for the shrieking cheering grinning hordes, that's all. When Derek edges a little towards her in the carriage, as they make their way up the Great Mall to the Palace, as he stretches out a booted foot to footsie at her, and his hand lingers too close to her silk-laden thigh, she _kicks_ him, hard but unobtrusive. And maintains the lovely composed smile on her face all the while.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Royal photo-op, for the newly-weds.

And Derek, he coughs a little, but retreats, and flashes handsome smiles about for all the pretty wolf-kin city girls, the country bumpkins who've made the trek into the Beacon city specially for this joyous day. And they swoon, and sigh, and the unmated ones think about how perhaps, if they'd ever had the chance to meet him, because you never know... Every one of them thinks she's probably his _true_ mate. It's a dream a lot of girls have. Until they meet the real thing, and realise how little such a pale imitation as the royal fantasy can satisfy, in comparison.

When they arrive before the steps of the Royal Palace of the Hills Nation, and step out, handed out by flunky after flunky, there's red carpet pretty much _everywhere_. The crowds are held back by silken ropes, and security, and wolf-form officers who bare their teeth and show they mean business, for the odd over-enthusiastic idiot who tries to get closer. And both Derek and Allison know perfectly well what's expected at this point, and what they must deliver. Derek is the one who homes in to her side, showing her the requisite eagerness and courtly attentions, a deft and formal performance that's genuine, for all it's supposed to be a courtly fiction.


	5. Chapter 5

She allows the overt courtship, with only a faint display of maidenly skittishness, and there they are barely touching, posing for the coos and shrieks and sighs of an audience, not quite meeting eyes, shy and flirtatious. Just as if they had not spent the month previous, holed up in a private hideaway and sending their security details off hunting into the next county, the better to enable their private nirvana and exhaust each other, until they slept in each other's arms. And they give it long enough to satisfy the crowd, to fulfil the romantic fantasies that do enough of a cover-job to blind the weaver to their satisfaction over a royal's lifelong frustrations, mate-separation. They weave and dance about each other, just as if they were faking it.

Just as if they were faking it, for the crowd's satisfaction. Not that Derek doesn't begin to get caught up in it for its own sake, unable to pull away from Allison's eyes as they slide away from his. She smiles with shy seduction into the sighing crowds, from the twist of her waist and the tilt of her bosom in the tight-bodiced dress that flatters and displays, as she leans in and then teasingly, cruelly pulls away. It keeps them decent and seemly, and not too much of a show to tease for the populace who want them giving only the pretence of mates, and never the raw, full-blooded reality. Oh, God forbid. Certainly that's something they must never let slip. It is, after all, only civil not to rub it in. (That in fact they bond and cleave).

He can't pull away, can't Derek – is hypnotised and yearning, is barely aware that the sweating, cheering, excitable populace exist, still less that they gawp and scrutinize and want a show. It's a good thing, therefore, that Allison's control is somewhat better. Not that she doesn't feel it – the pull and the daze, the glare and the shock. But perhaps the residual resentments, the memories of their botched initial courtship help her shut it down and deal with duty, not desire. At any rate she breathes and glares and nudges him, and grabs his arms hard enough to bruise, when he reaches in for a kiss, or perhaps to rest their cheeks together. “Control yourself,” she snarls in his ear. It's not purely human, is edging into the wolf enough that there's the crackle and snick of the joints, the burring rasp of the bones and tendons until he holds her back, grips on tight enough to remind her that a transformation would be inappropriate and embarrassing. And would no doubt involve a shedding of her gown.


	6. Chapter 6

And that would mean it could never be preserved for a museum display, and delight future generations. Which woould be a great pity, and a loss to the history of aristocratic wolf-kin fashion.

There they are, then, on the red-carpeted palace steps, holding on to control and to propriety, appearance, until they breathe and calm themselves into being merely players in the show. And Derek kisses Allison's cheek as they begin to wave, and it's _perfect_. Perfect enough to satisfy Allison, that they've done their duty. And she pinches his arm, hard. It's time to go, and though he's getting a little tired of being maneuvered and directed by his honeybun, his skinnyminny – and perhaps she's getting a little tired of his diminutives, too, even at this stage of the game – he lifts his hand in a wave, and they retreat up the palace steps, herded and ushered by security, footmen, a plethora of underlings. It's all fixed, charming smiles and continuous waves until their hands might drop, polite laughter at the feigned wolf mating-howls that intermittently follow. And then they're inside the great gilded palace door. Neither of them can move fast enough to get out of sight as the doors are shoved, clanging heavy, to shut out the heaving, adoring crowds.

Allison is almost tottering over to a hallway ante-room _chaise-longue_ , falls onto it even as she speaks, hands skittering to pull her lace fichu down and release her tight-laced stays. “God, my God, I thought it would never end. My waving hand is about to drop off, my feet feel as if they've swelled up to baboon size, and if I don't have a chance to transform sometime soon then I swear to God I'm just going to pelt up and eat a _footman_.”


	7. Chapter 7

There's a snarl in her voice that might not be altogether due to the heat, the ceremonious observance of etiquette and the requirements of her position. It's a snarl he's heard now and then during this past mostly happy month, odd times when the way they met and the night before their wedding come to mind for his Alli. Already he's learning that that snarl bodes nothing good, not that most snarls do. But also, that if he – or his past behavior – has the power to evoke it, then he also has the power to ameliorate Allison's moods. Given a little sugar, and a little coddling persuasion.

He's following on behind her, and catches at her hand as she rubs it over her elaborate coiffure, her face. And once clasped, Derek will not let her pretty paw go. Allison tugs at it, and gives him an ugly look from where she's splayed, dress rumpled, inert upon the _chaise-longue_. As ugly as her lovely gentle face will allow, at least.

Their duties are not at an end, though _hoi polloi_ is left behind, beyond the golden doors of the palatial frontage. And as Allison purses her lips, and gives him an impressively evil look, Derek jerks his head to the assembled party behind them. It's their welcoming party, butlers and housekeepers and cooks and maids and footmen and upper footmen and... oh, perhaps the entire palace staff. At their head, as might be expected, is the Sheriff, Derek's old pedagogue and tutor.

Derek only considers himself fortunate that the look that the Sheriff is leveling at him is less fierce, than understandingly patient. Perhaps with just a trace of reproof.

He must know, quite well, that Derek has had a difficult month. Royal honeymoons are, with quiet notoriety, _difficult_. But really, he has no idea. None at all.

He knows, though, because Derek was fool enough to let it slip, that Derek met his _mate_ , before the wedding. The mate he should never have met at all, because _mates_ aren't for royals. Luxury and privilege and status, those are the things for royals. Their compensations.


	8. Chapter 8

But the Sheriff knows that much at least, and there's enough sympathy in his eyes to take the edge off his disapproval at Allison's irritability, her disrespect for etiquette. (And Derek's weak-willed, indulgent tolerance of it, his reluctance to pull her up and remind her of her civil and royal duty.) But Derek _does_ know their duty, and he tugs a little harder at Allison's hand. He hears her exasperated sigh, as he casts an apologetic look the Sheriff's way. But then the exasperation turns indulgent, almost tender, as she hums a soft couple of little bars, of a tune they played a hundred times, on the wind-up victrola in their honeymoon lodge.

It brings back to him, immediately and painfully, a thousand moments beautifully sharp and clear, that he should never have been gifted with this past month, that he assuredly had not earned as a just reward. And it's sharp enough that he barely has any control over himself, his wolf, his desires. Still less so, when Allison pulls herself up to stand beside him, clinging onto his hand and rolling her eyes, giving him the most coquettish look through her ridiculous eyelashes. That melts him. He has to hang on to decorum and control, faced with that.

Still, there's duty to think of. There's _always_ duty to damn well think of. His arm under Allison's, he coaxes her forward a little. They have their greetings, their formal welcome to consider. They cannot lounge around, like it's an extension of their drunken wedding vacation – drunken in all senses, giving Baudelaire free rein.

And his darling accedes to his urging – since it pleases her. Always, and only, if it pleases her, as he full well knows by now. A wolf-kin woman's wifely duty, and respect for a dominant husband, is attenuated and shrunk down to almost nothing in Allison's case, except perhaps in the marriage bed. (And he sighs and eases himself uncomfortably at the mere thought, that brings up so many pleasurable thoughts and unwise notions, and images, and memories.


	9. Chapter 9

Best not to think of that in mixed company. Or any company at all, barring his and Alli's alone, without audience or interruption.)

So they sweep forward, a handsome couple, he's aware, and they begin the dutiful greetings of the assembled household staff. The Sheriff -- Stilinski -- first, of course. He needs no introduction, has had formal introduction and getting to know the royal bride gone through with, during the run up to their wedding, after all, the initial negotiations. (The ones Derek rebelled against, and refused to entertain or to participate in, instead sending the Sheriff off to do the necessary. What a really raging fool he'd been.) But the Sheriff greets Allison with great kindness. And perhaps a slight crinkling of the nose, that he quells with the utmost rapidity.

They're still wearing the thick and oily herbal covering scent, both of them. It's part caution, part superstition, part... Derek doesn't know exactly what.

Royal couples are not true wolf-mates. It never happens. It's planned that way. The plan isn't to _avoid_ it, though. It's not a negative strategy of simple avoidance. It's active – to make every royal alliance give the most bang for the buck, the most advantage to the kingdom. Why waste a royal get on its mate, perhaps a sailor or an actress or a lumberjack, after all? When you can hook it up with another royal sprig, or a banker or international merchant with deep pockets, a politician with contacts and influence that will ensure stability for the line?

And if a royal match were true mates... Well, almost tacitly, they've come to agreement by now, Derek and the lady-wife. (The thrill, to think that. Compared with a couple of months back, the despair of his impending nuptials, the longing for his true mate, stolen away in the night, robbed of him. Robbed by his own cowardice, if he's honest, and then her contempt to bear.) Better caution than public amazement and condemnation, they think. If no-one knows they're true mates... Well. The secret may come out eventually. But let them become entrenched in the public affections first. A lot safer.

And step one of that is _this_ – as they glide forward together, down the line of the household staff. The Sheriff gives them a nod, as they work their way through butlers, under-footmen, the two cooks, the six sous-chefs, the upper maids, the lower maids, the gardeners, the gardeners' boys...

It must take a good fifteen minutes, the glad-handing and polite inquiries about names and standing in the household, the assurances of loyal service and the grateful acknowledgements. Derek feels exhausted of his reserves of duty, civility and decorum by the end, but Allison, his Alli, is pink-cheeked and invigorated. His Alli, no snob for all her blue blood – her dearest friend her own serving maid, Lydia, her circle of ladies-in-waiting drawn as much from the merchant and professional classes as the aristocracy. Now, right now, she's every inch the lady, the princess, cordially greeting each uniformed and properly deferential member of staff. Give it two weeks, he thinks, cynical and proud at once. Two weeks, and she'll know everyone's nick-name, not just their first name. Will be using it, too, in situations both appropriate and not. Will be caught hanging out with the scullery maids in the kitchens, trying for a surreptitious moon-run with the distaff cousins' governess, smoking out by the topiary displays with the gardeners' boys.

 _His_ Alli. She's a non-conformist, a rebel, a wild one. He'll get lectured on keeping her in line, on proper deference, on courtly tradition and feminine, wolf-kin expectations. From the Sheriff, from his royal father the King, hell, probably from the more tight-assed of his supposed friends.

They can all go hang. He adores her.


	10. Chapter 10

Though it has to be admitted, he still feels apprehension right now. The Sheriff draws them away, gives a formal thank-you and dismissal to the assembled staff, and stands before them watching closely. “Your Highnesses, many thanks for giving the staff such a warm response. I can assure you that it will be much appreciated. Now, your royal parents await you in the silver drawing room. May I beg you to accompany me?”

It's gracious of the stiff old fart to phrase it as a request. As if there were any possibility of refusal. As if he – as if they – had the faintest _option_.

Alli squeezes his arm, and he can hear her little sigh, knows the exact same thoughts are passing through her pretty little head, her knife-sharp brain. They are doomed. Well, temporarily, anyway. But it feels like doom, right now.

Up the endless marble stairs it is, then, on to the third-best receiving room, for a warm reception from both sets of royal incumbents, his Kingdom and her Kingdom both. Well, as these things go.

***

“My very dear.” A couple of pantaloon-wearing footmen have opened wide gilded double doors at their approach, and the new royal pair enter. It's not a formal state chamber, and it's not strictly a formal reception. There are no thrones, no symmetry and no daïs set above the young couple. Only their respective parents, set in mismatched pairs, to each side of a tiny gilded coffee table, each of their royal arses set with uncomfortable tightness on little gilded occasional chairs.

(If this was anything other than a royal marriage, these anything other than royal wolf-kin parents, then how different it would be. And crucially, it would be conducted another way entirely, mostly, by non-royals. One with pelts, and claws, and the moon, and a howling shrieking joyous run, out on the prairie. A very much more comfortable greeting, Derek thinks, sliding a finger around a stiff starched collar with some degree of resentment).


	11. Chapter 11

Surprisingly, in a show of what would almost qualify as unrestrained wolf-kin emotion, Alli's mother -- Queen Veronica -- has actually risen (with a slight degree of difficulty) from her chair, and greets her with more than those three opening words. With an actual hug, no lie –- or at least some slightly hesitant, long-armed, distant version of one. Derek's father, King Richard, sighs audibly at the weak womanly display, but there's a tolerant twitch to his mouth, as he rolls his eyes expressively at his Mountain Kingdom counterpart, Alli's father Christopher the Mad. (The soubriquet is traditional within the Mountain royals, and is no aspersion upon the monarch's mental capacity. A younger son in each royal generation, in the hilly lupine region, is generally picked out as the most lively, rumbustious, and generally badly-behaved. A younger son Christopher was, until his older brother's unfortunate hunting accident, at the hands of unruly hinterland humans in the marsh region, prone to rebellion, theft and disorder. But if Christopher was indeed the best-humored and most gallivanting of his generation, then the sticks up the asses of the rest of his bunch must have been large and immovable, Derek thinks privately. He keeps the observation to himself, and looks forward to many more years of doing so. In-laws, something even royal newly-weds can't finagle themselves out of, a hazard that gifts itself upon the unwary and the prepared alike, and flows down upon the benighted recipients year after year).


	12. a man says a lot of things in summer he doesn't mean in winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is the inimitable, irreproachable and utterly admirable Patricia Briggs.

Derek's parents are a little stiffer, a little colder. And considering the already arctic temperature of even Allison's royal-kin parent and child interactions, that is a statement full of awe. Not that he isn't used to it. Maybe there's something about not being allowed to fulfill the true mate-bond, that makes the bonds with the cubs of an arranged royal union so much weaker and chillier. In any case...

His mother and father both – Talia and Richard, royal heads of the Low Kingdom –- greet him with tired, blasé nods, that express just how delighted they are to greet their eldest, their heir, scion of a noble royal house and next in line to the throne, back from his royal wedding trip. Oh well. He is used to it, he reminds himself.

“For God's sake, don't just stand about, young 'uns,” grunts out Richard, narrow eyes narrowing further in his booze-reddened face. He sticks stocky, muscular legs out before him with a stolid thud, inelegant and impatient with etiquette and formality as always. “You see an extra set of chairs before you? Don't stand on ceremony or wait for an invitation, for God's sake. Make use of 'em, and tell us how your month went. Not too much detail, mind,” he adds, with a ribald wink at his son. “Your dear mother can't take too much excitement. And I don't think she can remember how that particular dance goes, anyhow. Been a while, eh, dear? Forgotten the steps by now, have we?”

His tone is jovial enough, and the bleak disapproving look he gets in response from Derek's mother isn't even particularly scalding or outraged. It's not as if they _hate_ each other. The bland indifference between them is almost more depressing than that would be.

But they still have the Sheriff with them, and before they can seat themselves, he steps forward in front of them, with a slight bow. “Might I petition to have a word, your majesties?” he asks, with the greatest, though perfunctory, civility. “A matter regarding the first run of the combined royal packs, now that their highnesses are returned to us. It must be settled in order that the wolf-guards to be on duty for the run can be recalled in time, and the master of the guards is desirous that he shall have time to pick out the finest and most competent men, to do their duty for the auspicious occasion.”


	13. Chapter 13

“Well,” King Richard says, irritable and yet agreeably condescending towards a much-favoured servant, “don't stand on ceremony, Sheriff. We are always at your disposal, man, as you very well know. This pair can amuse themselves a moment, I am sure,” he says. And he high-handedly indicates Allison and Derek, with a careless wave. He beckons the Sheriff forward, while wordlessly dismissing the younger generation with a jerk of the head.

Derek shrugs, just faintly enough for it only to be registered by Allison. They grin slyly at each other, as they drift off to the other end of the large and airy room, big enough to fit a regular wolf-kin's house within it. A moment away from their parents is no hardship. It's only being in the company of others that's difficult right now. In less than a moment they are caught up in their own private world once more, moving in towards each other. It's a movement that's less about personal volition than it is like being sucked into the radius of a magnet: a magnet that's going to pull all the iron from your blood, never let you go. _Never_. Allison feels the wolf come out, a little. But even a little is a _little_ more than a lady is supposed to ever show, except on an actual run with her own pack.

Being a lady is a faff and a bother, and Allison has no use for it at all. Her canines lengthen a fraction, and as Derek leans in to her –- his eyes both wolfish, and hungry in a way that yearns with more human longings –- she can almost taste the tang of a welling bead of blood. The bead she'll draw out his lip in a first bruising, piercing kiss, the first kiss that will lead on to–-.


	14. Chapter 14

“Ahem,” they both hear, from the other side of the room. It's not someone clearing their throat, and it's not a polite, low-key, unobtrusive attempt to capture someone's attention –- their attention. It's flat, sounded out as a word and not a cough or choke, loud and just barely patient. It's rather appalled, and recalling them to their environment, and more than that, their _company_.

It's hard to pull away. Their eyes are still locked, their hands too, over in the light, airy little corner of the room they've gravitated into. Their bodies are pulled in close, and the dream, the infatuated buzz and song and cloud of mating joy about them is singing them into a daze. Actual sirens could do no more. But Derek squeezes his eyes shut a moment, and forces himself. He lets Allison's hands go, and she resents the loss, but she knows her cues, as a well-brought-up royal get, all right. They are required _elsewhere_. They cannot be alone, perpetually, forever.

 _Damn_ it.

Vaguely they turn towards the source of the impertinent interruption of their private communion, and the group of high-born wolf-kin stare back at them. To all of these people they are answerable: and Allison feels her cheeks flush hot, even as her teeth retract without her conscious intent. Beside her Derek twitches with a mirrored discomfort, and stiffens into the rigid, politely formal ass that she's briefly glimpsed, these intervening weeks, in his interactions with... well, anyone who isn't her. He's two people, is Derek. And Allison isn't sure, yet, how well she likes this stick-up-his-royal-ass version, the one who respects all social requirements, and thinks that his royal duty, usually grudgingly but exactingly performed, justifies his status and unthinking dominance of all underlings and lesser beings. And for that, read everyone barring his royal parents.


	15. Chapter 15

They don't really know each other so very well. How can they? You know your mate like you know your heart-beat: it's as intimate as a connection can get, and yet it's not exactly a detailed or _cerebral_ connection. It's autonomous, it's unconscious, it's instinct. She thinks she _likes_ Derek, as well as wanting him, as well as being utterly, utterly bound to him, for life, all their lives. As well as loving him. She isn't sure if she _approves_ of him, not yet, and that's not even taking into account his misdemeanours up until this point.

But enough of that. “My apologies, your majesties,” he says, with an achingly stiff and controlled, formal, deferential civility. He puts out his arm, for Allison to take. Resting her hand upon it, she sways, leaning a little upon him as is the fashion. It's about pretending a frailty that no wolf-kin woman possesses. (And why do they ape these human traits? As if a human counted a heartbeat's worth.) 

And they approach their families, their monarchs, and the Sheriff.

All five watch them intently, as they approach. Really much, much _too_ intently, and she feels Derek stiffen at her side, as he becomes aware of it in the same moment as herself. Silently, they watch, and then Allison and Derek stand before them.

The silence is awkward, very awkward. It stretches out too long, and then Allison's father, King Christian, gives them a more than thoughtful look, and taps one blunt, sharp-clawed finger to the side of his long nose. “Heartbeats, synchronized, do you notice?” he says.

He's not saying it to either Allison or Derek. He's saying it to his other companions, his fellow monarchs, and to the Sheriff. The Sheriff is staring at them, too. “Yes, your majesty,” he replies, and though his gaze is on the two of them, he's talking to the visiting king. “The sway and interlocking of their gaits, too, do you see?”

Queen Veronica chimes in, and eyes have never been colder than hers are now. “Can't keep their hands off each other,” she sniffs. “ _Disgusting_.”


	16. Chapter 16

“Well,” King Richard muses thoughtfully. “You could put that down to just a bloody good honeymoon and two weeks' rutting, if you were charitably inclined.” He's red-faced, choleric, barrel-chested: looks the epitome of fat-man good humor and relish of life. It's excessively misleading. He has an intellect like a whip with an edge of steel, and his wolf is dominatingly strong and brooks no crossing. “But then, I'm not,” he says, and his voice is colder. “Not a bloody fool, either. You know, that disgusting nuptial scented oil, it does a bloody good job, full strength, and at a respectable distance from the masses, in a royal wedding. But you haven't used enough, and you shouldn't need to use _any_ , at this stage, not with your parents. Not unless you were actually in rut. So, you two, you disreputable pair. Were you planning on letting us _know_ that the two of you are a damned pair of billing and cooing doves, an actual mated pair, at any point? Or just wait until we worked it out for ourselves? How long did you think it was going to take?”

Derek and Allison stand frozen. It's not that they've been caught bang to rights, exactly. Maybe it's not something that they were intending to advertise to the nation, or their social circle, or the staff of the palace. But it's a fact, right enough, and if anyone should know then surely it's their parents and monarchs.

This just isn't exactly how they'd planned, or failed to plan, to do it.

Last to speak up is Allison's mother, Queen Veronica. And she gets up before she does it, takes a gentle stroll around them. They're still standing frozen, clutching at each other in the way that gave the game away in the first place. Allison's mother has never, really, been warm, or affectionate, or even, most of the time, _interested_. Certainly no more so than most royal mothers, and Allison has met a few at this point. And yet, Allison appreciates her, appreciates that her mother has, off and on, at least _tried_. Her mother does, sometimes, try to be as much a mother as a queen.

And now, her face is softer, her voice milder, than the other three monarchs. “Of course the oil-scent gives the game away, my dears. You really shouldn't need it, at this stage of the game, after your honeymoon. And certainly not to meet your parents. We, us old four, we have all been through what a royal wedding normally entails, honeymoon and all.” And she looks back, chiefly at her royal husband, and smiles a little: leans back, and takes his hand briefly. King Christian coughs slightly, and looks embarrassed.


	17. Chapter 17

It's the brief, mildly affectionate gesture of friends, who are not very close. Queen Veronica turns back to them, and tips her head. “We did not need it. So, my dears.” There's something wistful in her face. “ _Mated_. And you only found it out at the altar, surely? Since...” And here she pauses, delicately. “Since your marriage negotiations were largely conducted by third parties.”

Allison feels Derek stir beside her. They have been frozen: but they are found out, and might as well deal with it, man up. “My lady,” he says gravely, to her mother, and he stands up a little straighter. He takes her hand with all the grace that his broad muscular form possesses so naturally, kisses it with the most courtly gesture that can be imagined. “You have the rights of it. And I would wish only that I had been more princely in my dealings from one royal court to another, and attended all negotiations to meet my future bride.” From her mother, there, he swings to face his Allison, to take her hand instead. “In order to have even those extra weeks in the company of my true mate: a blessing and a boon no wolf-kin man could ever deserve, or earn, or pray to be blessed with by the Gods.”

By God, he's laying it on very thick, and his Allison scowls down at his glinting eye, as he smirks faintly up at her, as he kisses her hand too, in turn. But it goes down well enough, so he must have judged his audience quite accurately. Queen Veronica seats herself once more. And Allison doesn't think that she mistakes herself, in hearing a little pleased whimper from her direction.


	18. Chapter 18

But the Sheriff, perhaps, is more brisk, and less sentimental. He turns to face the pair of them, head on, and his face is judgmental. “Your Highnesses,” he says. “It would have been a courtesy, perhaps, to have informed me of the fact immediately upon your arrival. As your advisor, Prince Derek: and the person charged with dealing with and determining your duties and public presentation to the kingdom.”

“My apologies, Sheriff,” Derek says, looking uncomfortable. “But you know pretty quick off the bat, all the same, isn't that right? Plenty of time to think how we need to deal with it.”

“No thanks to you, young pup,” King Christian mutters, not nearly enough under his breath. But Derek and the Sheriff are too busy engaging in some eye-to-eye combat and communication to pay him any heed. And Allison remembers that the Sheriff already knows, at least, that Derek disclosed to him well before that wedding that he had met his mate. He only did not know, had not had occasion to realize, that Allison was that very mate, at the wedding. But now they are back from their wedding trip, and suddenly with all revealed to this select little group. How very awkward.

Yes, it looks as if there are going to be some very thorough and disagreeable discussions between Derek and the Sheriff, later on in private, perhaps. But for now, it might be a touch awkward for the Sheriff to disclose what confidential information he was in fact privy to, before the wedding, especially without disclosing it to either set of royal parents, who might be said to have a very tender interest in the matter.

Instead, the Sheriff turns back to their majesties, with a weary and wary statesman's smile. “Your majesties. This is of course a very momentous occasion –- I cannot in fact recall a single monarch of either the Hills or the Low Kingdom for these past several centuries, who has been recorded as having married their true mate. Although there are several suggestive instances where perhaps a consort, on the quiet...” His eyes suddenly go wide, and he arrests himself. “However, that is neither here nor there in this matter. I must congratulate their highnesses upon their happy... happenstance. It is surely a great joy to have done so signal a service to both your kingdoms, allying them in unity and profitable commerce for generations, and also to have...” He hesitates. “My dears,” he says, and if anyone can afford to dispense with formality and deference, even around the monarchs of two kingdoms, then it is the Sheriff, based upon his long service and sage advice. “It is a happy chance that has brought you to this point. You should be congratulated.”


	19. Chapter 19

And he reaches out hands to them both. Allison is a little bit touched, she can't but admit it, and both of them clasp his hands back, briefly. There are a couple of little coughs behind them. Allison's mother is searching for a handkerchief in her reticule. And King Richard looks a little red in the face, and... is he blinking rather rapidly?

In any case. “But,” the Sheriff says, and he clasps his hands. “Beyond that occasion for joy, your royal selves are charged with great responsibilities, and this is an unprecedented occasion. Your majesties,” he says, turning back to their parents, “it must be decided how to deal with this news. The secret, I must surely say, cannot be kept forever. And though we may congratulate their highnesses amongst ourselves –- the news may not be received with the same joy, amongst all of the people of the kingdom.”


	20. Chapter 20

“Resentment and rebellion, you think?” King Christian asks, pondering it through, judging by the look on his face.

“It's a possibility, your Majesty,” the Sheriff agrees. The sober old grey-beard rubs his bearded chin, looking very troubled. “There are frequent murmurs of unrest and discontent in any case. The lack of good hunting land, the over-population problem, two bad harvests in a row... We must aim for the utmost diplomacy, and perhaps minimise the news, describing it as only–-.”

“Oh, hang all that,” King Christian announces rudely, interrupting him and standing with swift assurance, dominating the room in his royal robes with a faint hint of crackling announcing that the wolf is close to the surface, here, his impatience almost shading over into bad temper. “You can frame it how you like, Stilinski, but facts are facts and the people aren't stupid. And I can't see that it'll pay to treat 'em as if they are. This pair are as mated as mated can be –- they've got the love-stink all over them, even coming through that godforsaken oil-scent. How I see it, you might as well just make the announcement and present it as good news. If it's presented that way then maybe the majority will take it that way. It damn well beats apologising for their existence and suggesting that they're quite fond of each other and isn't it jolly?”

“Seconded,” Allison's father grunts, and even Derek's mother, Queen Talia, sighs in a chilly fashion and nods.

“One must put a good face on it, Sheriff,” she points out. “If one whines and crawls with one's tail between one's legs, like a dog awaiting a whipping, then, why, one might get one. Announce it in triumphal fashion,” she says. “And open up the deepest coffers –- throw a few street-parties, and import in live game for celebratory runs. That'll sweeten all but the most hardened malcontents.”

“Damn good idea,” Christian murmurs, stroking his beard, and leans toward her with a most civil nod and smile. (They appear to have taken to each other. But then, flirtation, and more, is endemic in royal courts. For lack of mating, the mating never ends. Mating of a kind, at least. Blind eyes are very necessary for all royal spouses.)


	21. Chapter 21

The Sheriff sighs. But he softens, when Allison's mother pops back up, impulsive, and puts her arms around them both where they lean up close together. “My dears. The nation must celebrate. We all should celebrate.”

Although it's a very reluctant smile, the Sheriff does smile. “As you wish,” he says. “Very good, my lady, your majesties, your highnesses.”

***

Whatever plans the Sheriff is plotting, to soften the news of their mating, Allison doesn't inquire or desire to give her input for. Not that this is normally characteristic behaviour for her –- Allison always has an opinion, and is very fond of making her voice heard, as Derek is fast learning.


	22. Chapter 22

But there'll be time for that later –- a little time. And she'll accost the Sheriff and put her point of view to him tomorrow, early, before he has time to set any plans into motion. For now, their royal parental reception done with, and all the unexpected drama of it, she spends an hour or two, settling into their royal suite in the castle. It's her new home, barring occasional royal visits back to the Plains Kingdom. And when their parents are laid in the ground, a get of hers and Derek's –- she shivers at the idea –- will rule the Hills Kingdom, and she will still be merely a visitor. A greatly honoured and distinguished royal visitor, a wolf-kin Queen Mother, it's true. But still only a visitor. Her old home is her home no longer.

But she's not brooding or languishing much as she settles in, not sorrowing over homesickness and what she's lost. She has other things to think about, because Derek is settling in with her, to rooms that are not his old rooms, but reserved for married royal sprigs, for the royal heirs once settled down and waiting for their turns upon the royal throne.

He doesn't help her settle much, because he isn't around for long. Up close, standing in her dressing room where she's been casting off stays and bustles and stupidly uncomfortable ladylike garments, and has now donned a beautiful chinoise dressing gown that lets her body breathe and flex and give vent to wolf-like flexes and stretches, he puts his arms about her and they breathe together a moment or two.

“I must go consult with the Sheriff,” he says softly to her. “The old goat is headstrong as a... a goat! And very set on knowing better than even his betters, in all matters of policy and governance. But still, I'd sooner know all of his plans, because wise as he is, I do not think him quite as wise as he thinks he is. Who amongst us can claim it? Better if I probe a little, and can dissuade him ahead of time, if anything he has in his grey-headed old noddle is too brazen or bold. Our parents will do nothing to oppose him –- not that they fear him, but only trust him too much. And in the morning...”

His eyes glazed a little, as his mind traveled elsewhere in thought. “Well, in the morning I'll deal with that other little matter.” And he gives Allison a slight smile, less broad and effusive than she's used to now, from him. “But we don't need to think about that now.”


	23. Chapter 23

And indeed he does his utmost to push it out of her mind, with a kiss that's still a tremendous shock to her system, can still wipe out every rebellious thought from her mind. (That's a dreadful thing, for Allison. She's going to have to keep an eye on that, for sure.) She vibrates hot up against him, and feels the smugness of his grin pressed up against her cheek. If she could wipe that grin off his face, right now, then she _would_. But he knows that she can't –- that, for all her disapproval and the reproaches that she flings at him whenever they come to mind, once he has her in his arms and lays lusty hands on her, she melts into him with little enough will of her own, and no will to oppose him, certainly.

Damn him. May all the gods damn the man, and the wolf inside him too. He talks into the curls at her temple, and she's tempted to knee him in the groin for the tender patronage, the doting on the little-woman of the princely wolf-kin. “I'll not be long, Allison. No doubt you'll be asleep before I return, but I'll be in haste in any case. I doubt the matters we'll discuss would interest you. But I shall of course make you a full report, in the morning. Well, an edited version, in any case. Affairs of state are hardly going to absorb your flitting mind!”

He laughs gently, and she cocks her head up at him. It's adorable, and she knows it. And she wonders if he knows just how close he's coming to getting his _masculine adornments_ removed, for decoration and desiccation into adornments to _her_ person. How can he know her so well, and barely at all, a month and more into their mating and marriage?


	24. Chapter 24

She adores him, it's true. But that's practically an involuntary matter, and he ought by rights to know it. It would behoove him well to step more carefully with her, and mind himself that the tender darling who shares his bed, who runs with him under the moon and pants beneath him when he rolls her, lets her head loll back to show him obeisance, is still the same harridan who threatened him with scandal and bodily harm in a darkened Hills Kingdom pub, mere days before their cataclysmic next meeting and wedding.

He'll learn, though. She's confident of that. For now, she pats his stubbled cheek gently, kisses it as he bids her adieu with a last passionate grasp, clasped up together like he can't quite bear to let her go, even for so trivial a reason, even for so brief a span.

When she waves and pushes him out of the suite, there's something cynically amused in the set of her plump pretty mouth. Her man, her mate, her husband, she owes him allegiance and love and gets and obedience and all kinds of things. She doesn't quite think that she owes him the gift of taking him seriously. That particular gift is something that must be earned, and Allison has a quite unusually active sense of humour.

And in any case, she has no attention or concern to spare, in considering her mate's vagaries and activities. She has her own plans to ferment. And with the door closed, she leans her cheek against it, and sighs. Derek will be away down the corridor, on his way to the Sheriff's little tower-top room of office, and she gives him a moment. A moment to get well away, while she waits for her own moment.

Then, when she is sure he is good and gone, she opens the door back up again, and heads off in the opposite direction. Because she has her own plans, and her wifely duty doesn't include informing her mate of every little jot and tittle of her plans and her activities.

Derek has mentioned, just now, of his concerns for the morning. And his plans, for discussion, and sorting things out. What he's referring to is his concerns about _Stiles_ , the handyman and artisan of the palace, who keeps the boiler-room and the dumb-waiters and the lighting system and the plumbing all going, and comes up with handy gewgaws and human-style trickery that make life easy and pleasant. Stiles, she knows, is the son of the Sheriff, the most senior servant in King Richard's country estate, estate manager and secretary. And the Sheriff is -- in some ways -- a fellow with pretensions above his station, who sent Stiles to the same academic crammer for the sons of wolf-kin gentlemen as Derek and the Jackson fellow were packed off to, and wanted a life for him married into the aristocracy and living the life of those above his station or pack status.


	25. Chapter 25

That Stiles has chosen to adopt the life of an engineer and craftsman is gall and wormwood to the fellow. And that he regards it as shameful only confirms Derek's opinion of the fellow, privately shared with Allison, that despite his many good qualities and sterling service, the Sheriff can on occasion be a fool. Stiles, Derek says, is the cleverest fellow in the kingdom and any kingdom bordering the Low lands. And a sound fellow, a strong character, and a good friend besides.

Derek has no concerns about Stiles's integrity, and his loyalty as friend and servant. But he's concerned all the same, and so is Allison, a bit.

Stiles was there on the night before the wedding –- _that_ night. The night that Allison took a walk out about the Low City with her maid Lydia, and got an inkling that Derek was inside that very disreputable public house, getting blind stinking drunk. That same night, that she decided to do something about it. (Catastrophically, decisively, with vigour and emphasis, leaving her mate and her man flat out unconscious and used up, spat out again from her wolf-girl jaws, his seed spilt and his heart aching. Well, he'd earnt it. It wasn't as if she'd run back to her own royal digs with an intact heart, or hymen for that matter. What a scandal he is, her love, what an asshole, all the tenderness he pulls out of her all unwilling notwithstanding.)


	26. Chapter 26

It's not exactly a problem. Stiles, according to Derek, is a splendid fellow –- upright and loyal and honest, a man to depend upon. He is Derek's oldest friend, and Derek thinks the world of him. Whatever he knows, Derek is confident that he'll be keeping it to himself. And in any case, Derek sent a couriered message from their wedding trip lodge to the Lowland City, a message for Stiles. Not putting too much detail or too fine a sheen upon it, merely to say that he trusted, whatever Stiles had witnessed, or thought he had witnessed, as a sword-bearer at the royal nuptials –- whatever he had seen prior to that, in the run-up to the wedding itself –- he trusted Stiles to keep mum, his reticence a rock that Derek relied on.

And since they'd not been met on their return by sour-faced family and outraged advisors, a scandalized quartet of royal parents and senior officials, it's a fair bet that Stiles has had the nous and the wisdom to keep his trap well shut, to maintain discretion and keep his head well down. Whether for reasons of ancient loyalty, or an attachment to the status quo and his post in the palace, or just out of plain good sense and a sense of self-preservation, who knows.

They'd been far too bowled over and dumbstruck to even think of it, in the immediate aftermath of the wedding, the shock of laying eyes upon one another still fresh enough to turn their wits and send them nutty with bonded excitement. Or, at least, Derek had been, since she'd barely known of Stiles's existence, beyond a brief glimpse of a startled formally-uniformed-looking fellow, who rung the faintest bell that she'd done nothing more than dismiss utterly, having plenty other things to think on with the utmost emotion and urgency, after all.

But the thought had come to Derek's mind, even if only with them hundreds upon hundreds of miles away, and having already got themselves re-acquainted upon a very intimate basis and having spent hours in each other's arms, marveling at the strange vagaries of destiny and kissing the luck into each other's mouths. He'd looked a little concerned, suddenly, a crease between his straight dark brows that did not sit well upon his regal, aristocratically handsome face. And at her tender enquiry, had said only, “It's nothing, my darling. Where were we, in any case?”


	27. Chapter 27

But it was something, obviously, and Allison had insisted. And once it was out, they were both concerned. The existence of a witness to their meeting prior to the wedding, their whorey encounter in a dockside public house, Allison all gartered up like any trawling whore wearing semen in place of lipstick? Someone who knew them as Crown Prince and Princess of the Hills Kingdom, too, now. Derek had made his resolve, to speak to Stiles and assure himself of his old friend's discretion, once they were back within the boundaries of the Hills Kingdom. Not, he hastened to reassure Allison, that he was truly concerned over the issue.

But the missive couriered, that was sign enough at the time to Allison, that his mind wouldn't be truly easy until he'd spoken man-to-man to Stiles and knew his mind, was assured of his silence as of the grave. And it was enough, too, to have her resolving that, whatever words her Derek might choose to exchange with his dear old friend and servant, who'd sprung upon them at an unready moment... Well, that she would be exchanging some words with the man first. Just to put her mind at rest.

And now, now, freed from the darling prison of her darling's company, she is full of resolve, and ready to put her intentions into action. Derek would protect her, has a foolish notion –- considering the experience of her he's already accumulated –- that she is his other half, but a _lesser_ half, in need of protection and shelter.

It's sweet, really. But he'll learn better in time.


End file.
